swabbie, swabbo

[Jonathan Lighter]

I "swabbie"

Not in OED, though HDAS files have loads of cites from WW2 on.

It means a sailor, esp. a deckhand. A swabber of decks.

Here's an interesting adumbration:

1911 Arthur Train, in _Evening Star_ (Wash., D.C.) (Apr. 11) (Sunday Mag.)
16: Why, it's old Swabbie the scrubwoman! Hello, Swabbie, old girl!

Train was a popular novelist of the day, and his story ("Bat") appeared in
several papers.

II  "swabbo"

Also not in OED. Occasionally a synonym for the above (as in Tom Wolfe),
but in older naval usage a zero or, as below, a complete miss on a target
range.

1909 _Boston Journal_ (July 30) 6:The scorers were all men of the United
States Marine Corps, and when a shooter fired at a target and got a miss,
and the red flag was waved to denote the fact, the scorer called out in the
language of the service: "A swabbo for -------."  Much merriment ensued,
and the [Spanish-American War veterans] now have a new word added to their
vocabulary.


JL

-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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